Boiler-furnace



UNITED STATES THOMAS H. ULARK, OF ST. LOUIS, MISSOURI.

BOlLEFt-FURNACE.

Specification forming part of Letters Patent No. 47,619, dated May 9, 1865.

To all whom it may concern Be it known that I, THOMAS H. CLARK, of St. Louis, inthe county of St. Louis and State of Missouri, have invented a new and useful Improvement in Boilerl5`urnaces5 and Ido hereby declare that the following is a full, clear, and exact description thereof, which will enable those 'skilled in the art to make and use the same, reference being had to the accompanying drawings, forming part of this specication, in which- Figure l is afront elevation of a furnace with four boilers. Fig. 2 is a plan view thereof. Fig.3 is a perspective view showing one of the sides of furnace and its back part, a portion of the back wall being broken away. Fig. 4 is a sectional elevation, the section being taken midway between two adjacent boilers.

Similar letters of reference indicate corresponding parts.

This invention consists, among other things, in causing the products of combustion to be equally distributed under the boilers of furnaces, and in preventing them,where several boilers are set in the same bench or block, from passing diagonally aw ay from the boilers most remote from the chimney and escaping to the chimney without heating such distant boilers.

The drawings show the walls of a furnace whose grate lis designated by the letter G, above which the front parts of the boilers a project, as shown in Fig. et. The boilers are set so as leave fines B about ve inches deep beneath them, the shape of said iiues being that of a semicircle, whose sides are concentric with the sides of theboiler. The said ilues communicate with each other by reason of the intersection of their sides at a line about midway of the height of the boilers, their lines of intersection forming, respectively,the top of partitions A, which is thereby made between the lower parts of adjacent boilers. a

D are air-passages made in the side walls of the furnace, opening out in front to communieate with the atmosphere, and extending horizontally alongside of the furnace and beyond it, and then entering the outer iiuespaces, B, alongside the outer boilers, a. The

office of these air-fines is to keep the walls cool and to supply air to the hot gases of th lire.

E is also an air-tube, built in the brick wall underneath the boilers, and opening on each side thereof, as shown in dotted outline in Fig. 2. Branch tubes E', communicating with the tube E beneath the boilers, extend upward in an inclined direction, as seen in Fig. 4, and open into the due-spaces B in the midst of the transverse channel C, which intersects the flues B not far behind the grate. The object ofthe pipes EE' is also to supply air to aid in consuming the gases from the burning fuel. The iiues B extend beyond the channel G until they end at the space C',

which serves as a general uechamber to receive the products of combustion, which are thence distributed to the return-fines, which pass through the boiler'in the usual way to and fro, until they are discharged from the upper return-dues, I, of the boilers, above the top J of the iiuechamber G, whence they pass to the chimney, having been deprived in great measure of their heat. The channel C has doors c2 at each end in the walls of the furnace, to enable the firemen to clean the ii'ues and remove ashes and soot therefrom, and the due-chamber C has at each end doors c3 for the same purpose.

One of the benefits arising from this con.

struction is that the products of combustion are caused to move in a straight curve beneath the several boilers in the bench by rea-son of the dividing-ridges A, which separate the iiues B from each other, and prevent the said products from moving crosswise beneath the boilers when the draft sets toward one side or toward any particular part of the furnace which may be nearest t0 the chimneystack or most directly under its iniluence. When such a diversion of the smoke and gases takes place in a furnace where several boilers are laid beside each other, it is plain that the boilers nearest the stack, or, in other words, those which lie in the path of the smoke and gas currents so diverted, receive more of the heat of the hre, and of course make more stream than the other boilers, and are burned out sooner than the others.

The ridges A, which separate the ilues B from each other, are to be made of fire-brick, iron, or any other suitable material which can endure great heat.

I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent- The combination, in a boiler-furnace Where several boilers are arranged in the saine horizontal plane, of flues B, made concentric in their crosssection,with the bottoms ofv the boilers, and which extend beneath the boilers in the direction of their lengt-h, and are separated from each other by ridges A, With the transverse channels C G and. air-channels D D E E', substantially as above described.

THOMAS H. CLARK. Witnesses:

FRED. S. HUBBLER, JOHN TooKER. 

